Now, one of my classmates, a Catholic who is well known for discussing how hot some of our classmates are when working out at the gym and for posting sex-riddled comments on our med school class Facebook page, decided to engage me in a discussion about birth control.

His first comment:

Sex is a gift and so is Life.

My response:

Sure, many religions look at it like that.

But, for those who don’t think having sex automatically means bringing a new child into the world, which includes 98% of American women who use birth control at some point in their lives, birth control is good health care. Which is what we are going to school to learn.

His response:

Religion aside, this is matter of responsibility. The natural consequence of sex is procreation. Sure 98% of American women uses birth control but how many are using it for hormonal control? It’s call the Principle of Double Effect.
Granted, minus those numbers and we probably still have a high number that uses it singly for birth control. Sometimes I wonder why our culture is lacking accountability and less people taking responsibility for their actions. We have created these loopholes and while embracing it as the wonderment of science and medicine, we are losing our own morals and identity.
We go to school because we embrace and celebrate the meaning and importance of life, not to manipulate it in a fashion that is to our convenience.

My response:

We are going to school to face the realities of health care in the United States. You may personally think that birth control is immoral, but the vast majority of the United States population does not. Medicine is not a place for fringe opinions that end up denying care and making people’s health situations worse.

I think it is immoral to deny health care, you think it is immoral to use birth control. Hopefully, we will both practice good medicine.

What I really wanted to say:

Are you a virgin? Can we talk about all of your sexual decisions and put them up for ME to be judge and jury on? Why is that we only start talking about responsibility when a woman has an interaction with a person in the medical field who has some level of control, perceived or no, over her sexuality or reproductive choice? Are we holding regular hearings on sexual behavior of men? Any outcry over vasectomies? How about the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church? Was that sex a gift to those children? Did those priests rape those children due to the availability of birth control?

If you want a crusade that will impact sex that is not being used as a gift, will be compatible with the Bible’s teachings, and will improve health care, why not look into rape prevention? Just not rape treatment, because he would be one of those doctors refusing emergency contraception to rape victims. Because he thinks a rape victim should take responsibility for that gift.

One response to “OK, this is entertaining”

So, what does he propose doctors do when an unmarried woman showed up to his practice for a pregnancy test or prenatal care? Deny the premarital sex happened because it doesn’t fit in with his “moral” paradigm? Deny the existence of the pregnancy? Does he propose not taking a sexual history from unmarried people, or treating STDs if they occur?

What if a child disobeyed his parents and ended up being in an accident? Falling out of a tree she was not allowed to climb, for instance. Well, that is against one of the ten commandments. We should not do x rays on disobedient children, because we are free to deny health care to people who break Catholic moral code?